


Let’s Not Make Anything Out of This

by Catering_fears



Category: Hyouka & Kotenbu Series
Genre: Drabble, F/M, First Kiss, Kissing, Romance, Teens being awkward, houtarou trying to deny his feelings like always
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catering_fears/pseuds/Catering_fears
Summary: “Oreki, I’m curious about something.”“What’s it like to kiss someone?”“W-where did that come from?”
Relationships: Chitanda Eru/Oreki Houtarou, Fukube Satoshi/Ibara Mayaka
Comments: 17
Kudos: 119





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been having some serious writer’s block, so I kind of just wrote this to see if I can still write.
> 
> For those who follow my “Love is Hard for Little Birds” story, I apologize for the delay in the last chapter. I hope this kinda holds you over a bit?

“Oreki, I’m curious about something.”

Houtarou hums in acknowledgment of the voice coming from beside him, showing that he’s listening even as he still looks down at the book in his hand.

It’s a regular Tuesday afternoon, just Houtarou and Chitanda are here to attend the Classics Club meeting this time. They’d been sitting in the clubroom for about a half an hour in comfortable silence before Chitanda had spoken up.

“What’s it like to kiss someone?”

That causes the lazy boy to snap his gaze toward her with a start. It’s so out of left field that he finds himself struggling to keep his composure. His face flushes as he stutters, “w-where did that come from?”

Chitanda at least has the decency to appear embarrassed as she explains herself. “Well, it’s just... I see Mayaka and Fukube kiss sometimes and it makes me... curious.”

“Why don’t you ask them then? It’s not like I’d know.” He grumbles, hiding his increasingly blushing face behind his book.

“Wait, Oreki,” Chitanda raises from her seat beside him slightly. Houtarou leans back as her face gets a little too close to his and uses his book as a shield. “Have you never kissed someone before?”

He frowns, pointedly turning his face away with a grunt, “does that surprise you?”

To Houtarou’s relief, she pulls away, sitting back down with her eyebrows knit together. “It does just a little.”

“What makes you think I had that kind of experience?”

She averts her eyes as she fidgets, “I’d heard some rumors...”

Rumors? Who was going around saying he’d kissed someone before? He hadn’t thought he was interesting enough to have gossip like that surrounding him. 

“Well they’re not true, I’ve never kissed anyone,” and why would he even want to? That and all it could possibly entail would consume way too much energy. That’s what he tells himself, however when Chitanda smiles shyly at him he finds his eyes traveling to her lips. He pulls his gaze away and back to his book as he closes it and carefully places it on the table.

“I’m more surprised that you’ve never kissed anyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smart, you come from a good family, you’re... not bad looking, I’d think someone would’ve tried to kiss you at some point.”

Chitanda laughs lightly, “I didn’t know you considered me such a prime kissing candidate.”

He knows she’s just teasing, but he blushes regardless. “You didn’t answer my question, why are you asking me?”

At that, Chitanda’s face turns bright red, she hides behind her hands. He hears a small squeak, but he can’t make out the words she’s saying.

“What was that?”

She speaks just a little louder, but her hands still muffle her voice.

“If you don’t tell me already I’m just gonna go home,” he huffs as he starts to stand up.

Chitanda’s hands shoot out to grab his arm, halting his escape. Her cheeks are bright red, but her look of embarrassment has twisted into determination. Her lips are pressed into a hard line, her nose is scrunched, and her eyebrows are knit together. He’s sure that look alone would’ve stopped him if she hadn’t grabbed him.

“I was hoping you could help me.” Her voice falters slightly, but she still speaks with a decisive tone.

He opens his mouth to ask her to elaborate, but stops when he catches her meaning, leaving it to hang open. His knees start to give out from the shock and he sits back down before he falls over.

“Oreki, would you kiss me?” Chitanda asks as she pulls him closer. 

Houtarou is sure this has to be some kind of dream. There’s no way Eru Chitanda is actually asking him to kiss her. He blinks hard, willing himself to wake, but his efforts heed no results. This is real.

His reaction must’ve caused some panic in Chitanda because whatever confidence she had melts away and she lets go of his arm. “You don’t have to! I just thought... maybe...” 

She stops, biting her lip and bringing a fist up to them. Houtarou’s eyes snap to her lips once again. He stares this time and as he does he actually considers it... kissing her.

It wouldn’t hurt, right? To kiss her just once. Certainly just giving her a small peck on the lips wouldn’t take up too much energy and would sate her curiosity...

“Okay,” he says after a moment, Chitanda looks up at him with wide eyes.

“But—“ he adds quickly, “let’s not make anything out of it, okay? This is just to satisfy your curiosity, nothing more.”

Chitanda gives him a curt nod, “understood.”

He wants to laugh at her seriousness, but his pounding heart keeps him from doing so. Why is he suddenly so anxious?

Okay, he just has to figure out how to go about this. Leaning in would be a start, so he takes a deep breath before tilting his body forward, toward Chitanda. She notices this and angles her head upward, closing her eyes. His heart rate shoots up as he inches closer and closer to her lips.

It’s only a light touch of the lips, lasting for a whole seven seconds or so, but it ignites a strange and unfamiliar feeling in him. They both pull back, staring at each other for a moment before awkwardly looking away.

“That was nice,” Chitanda whispers, fiddling with the hem of her skirt.

“Yeah,” Houtarou agrees quietly.

The once comfortable silence is now filled with tension, they occasionally glance at each other, all while Houtarou tries to ignore his still rapidly beating heart and the warm spreading through his chest. Every time he steals a glance at her, his eyes focus on his lips. 

Like last time, Chitanda breaks the silence.

“That was shorter than I thought.”

He finally turns to her fully and manages to make eye contact this time. “What do you mean?”

“I thought kisses were usually... longer.”

He blinks at her, he gets the sense that she’s trying to hint at something, to get something… more. “Are you still curious?”

She nods with a hum. Houtarou clears his throat, he decides to take the bait.

“Well, I guess if I leave you still curious you’re just gonna keep bugging me, right?” 

“That’s right,” she agrees with a nod, ignoring the slight insult.

He sighs as if he’s ever so put-upon, “then I guess I’ll just have to kiss you again.”

“I’d like that.”

That simple phrase makes his heart beat, which had steadied out, speed back up.

As they lean in to each other, he brings a hand up to cup her cheek. Chitanda closes her eyes and leans into his palm, soft lips slightly parted. The sight makes Houtarou’s heart skip a beat. He was always aware of how beautiful she is, but seeing her with that expression makes it all the more apparent.

When their lips meet, he presses just a little harder, and they start to move against each other, finding an easy rhythm. 

This kiss is certainly much longer, how long exactly, Houtarou isn’t sure. He’s too caught up in the softness and sweet taste of Chitanda’s lips to keep track. It both seemed long and altogether too short.

He turns his eyes away from Chitanda after they pull away, unable to look at her. He’s scared of what would happen if he does.

“Was that enough for you?” 

“Oh, um, yes. Thank you, Oreki.”

“Mhmm.” He stands up from his seat, nearly banging his knee on the table in his haste. “I’m going home now.”

“Oh, alright, see you tomorrow.”

He only waves dismissively as he retreats.

_ This is bad. This is really bad. _

Houtarou lays in bed, his arms swung over his eyes as he faces the ceiling. It’s been hours since he came home, but he’s still thinking about it… that  _ kiss _ .

It shouldn’t mean anything to him. Even if it was his first kiss, too. Those sort of romantic notions were best saved for people who wanted to live that rose-colored lifestyle. Not for him. He only did it to satisfy Chitanda’s curiosity. Just another mystery to solve.

And yet…

And yet his lips still tingled, as did the hand he cupped her cheek with. His whole body felt warm, too warm, almost burning. He doesn’t think he’ll ever forget that expression she made when she stopped him from leaving. That fiery determination breaking through her shyness. Her red cheeks, her furrowed brows, those shining eyes. It’s become imprinted in his mind and heart.

_ This is bad. This is really bad. _

These feelings are so overwhelming, trying to understand them saps his energy, but so does trying to suppress them. He really shouldn’t have done it. He should’ve refused her, she would’ve understood. It could’ve just been a brief, awkward memory.

Yet, when he recalls the softness of her lips and the sight of her leaning into his touch… he finds himself not fully regretting it. He thinks he’d even kiss her again if she asked.

But he’d said not to make anything out of it… and that would probably be for the best. He’s not suited for such frivolities.

He does wonder, though, how she’d react if he asked her if he could kiss her again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mayaka and Satoshi find out about what happened between their two friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually wrote the beginning of this chapter while I was still writing the first one, but I left it out because I didn’t like it. I later polished it and added some more stuff ;)
> 
> I hope this serves as a satisfying conclusion!

“Why do you keep staring at Chi-chan?”

Ibara asks him on Thursday after a club meeting. Chitanda had already left to go home and now Houtarou is stuck in the clubroom with the rather nosy remainders of their group.

He’s caught off guard by her sudden question, unable to respond for a moment. Satoshi speaks before Houtarou can even form a coherent sentence in his head.

“Please, Mayaka, he’s always been staring at Chitanda.”

Always? Since when?

“I know, but he’s been doing it a lot more recently. It’s starting to get creepy.”

He’s aware that he’s been stealing glances at Chitanda as of late, try as he might to not. It’s just that whenever he sees her now he thinks about… what happened between them and he zones out. He doesn’t catch himself until something else gets his attention.

“Actually, I’ve noticed that Chitanda has been staring at him a lot, too.”

Hearing that surprises him. Houtarou had caught the girl throwing him a bashful glance or two, but not outright staring. She was probably embarrassed by what happened.

“Now that you mention it… I think I’ve noticed that, too.” Ibara suddenly shoots him a venomous glare. “Did something happen between you two?”

His friends really don’t give themselves enough credit for their intuition. It’s only been a few days since the incident between him and Chitanda and they’re already catching on. Or maybe he and Chitanda were just that obvious.

“Nothing happened,” he denies, maybe a little too quickly, which they latch onto immediately.

“So something did happen!”

“No!”

“What happened?”

He groans inwardly, this is worse than anytime Chitanda has prestered him about some mystery or another. He glares at the two, trying to silently tell them to back off, but they just glare back. 

Finally, after an intense stare off, he sighs in defeat. “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

The couple look rather pleased with themselves and Houtarou can’t help rolling his eyes. He takes a moment to figure out how to word this exactly…

“We… kissed.”

There is an instantaneous explosion of words of utter disbelief. Several questions are hurled at him and it takes considerable effort to get them to slow down enough to just ask one question at a time.

“Hold on, was it just a peck or was it like a  _ kiss _ ?” Ibara asks.

“What does that even mean?”

“Just answer the question!”

“I don’t know? Both?

“You kissed more than once?!”

“Only twice.”

“When did this happen?”

“A few days ago.”

Ibara grumbles to herself, something about Chitanda not telling her about it. Like it’s really any of her business in the first place.

Satoshi on the other hand, looks like he’s deep in thought. “That explains why you two have been so weird around each other lately.”

Houtarou begrudgingly admits that his friend is right, when he’s not mindlessly staring at Chitanda, he actively avoids her. Otherwise he remembers that kiss and gets overwhelmed.

“It’s nothing, really, it meant nothing,” he insists.

Satoshi and Ibara glance at each other before raising their eyebrows at him at the same time. So what they say about couples having a tendency to mirror each other’s expressions is true.

“Your behavior says otherwise.” Ibara remarks, gesturing to him.

Since when did they become experts on reading his behavior? 

“Seriously, I just did it because she asked me, she was curious is all.”

“And in true Houtarou fashion you did just as she asked,” Satoshi says with a smirk. Before Houtarou can get irritated, he continues, “so, how was it?”

“Huh?”

“How was it? How was the kiss? Or I guess I should say  _ kisses _ .”

Houtarou wills away the blush that threatens to creep onto his cheeks. He tries to maintain an air of casual indifference. “It was fine.”

“Just ‘fine’?”

“Just ‘fine’.”

Ibara crosses her arms with a _hpmh_ , “so first you take a girl’s first kiss and then you act like it was no big deal?”

“Hey, it was my first kiss, too!”

“And you have no strong feelings about it?”

Houtarou freezes for a moment. It would be a lie to say he didn’t have strong feelings about that kiss. Even now that strange ache in his chest still persists, and if he’s alone with his thoughts his mind wanders to the memory of her soft lips, and how he wants to feel them just one more time.

But all of that is far too embarrassing to admit, so instead he turns away from his friends’ searing eyes and only grunts.

“Come on, Mayaka, you know Houtarou here doesn’t have strong feelings about anything.”

Despite the insult, Houtarou is grateful for Satoshi’s remark as Ibara pulls back.

“I guess you’ve got a point there.”

With that, the nosy couple finally leave him alone, but now all these thoughts about Chitanda refuse to leave his mind. He spends the rest of his day attempting to bury his thoughts and feelings down deep.

Of course, seeing Chitanda the next day is all it takes to bring those feelings crawling back to the surface.

“Oh, Oreki, did you see Mayaka and Fukube on your way here? We were supposed to have a club meeting today.”

“No… are they not here?”

“No… they must’ve forgotten.”

Houtarou probably should’ve sensed something suspicious about that, but his mind is otherwise occupied. He’s desperately trying to not stare at Chitanda, or her lips, even though she’s wearing lip gloss. When did she start wearing lip gloss? 

Instead he sits down in the seat on the opposite corner of the table from her and keeps his eyes pointed downward.

“Well, I guess the best thing to do would be to reschedule.”

“Mhm.”

“But maybe we can get started on something today at least?”

“Sure.”

Houtarou feels like a bit of an ass for making this conversation so one-sided, but engaging with her means remembering what happened between them, and those memories bring complicated emotions, emotions that require too much energy to process.

“Oreki.” Chitanda calls out to him, bringing him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Forgetting his fears, Houtarou looks up at Chitanda in surprise. She’s staring at the table, a sad expression on her face that does something to his heart.

“What about?”

“About… what happened between us. I didn’t intend for this to cause a rift between us. I just let my curiosity get the best of me and I should’ve known better. I’m sorry. We can just forget it ever happened, okay?”

She smiles up at him, clearly forced. Houtarou blinks at her.

“Well, that’s gonna be a bit of a problem.”

“Oh?”

“You see, I think I’ll have a hard time forgetting what happened.”

“Oh.”

“Because I don’t want to forget.”

“Oh!”

“In fact, if you’re still curious about the whole kissing thing… I’m still willing to help.”

“Oh?”

Chitanda smiles genuinely this time, she almost looks mischievous.

“Well, there is a type of kissing I’ve been curious about, I hear about it a lot.”

“Oh?”

“It does involve a little more energy, though, I hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” 

If she notices the crack in his voice, she doesn’t let it on, she just moves to sit closer to him.

And as their lips meet Houtarou thinks that using up energy for the sake of kissing Chitanda isn’t so bad.


End file.
